


yours/mine

by yuusaku



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! Zexal
Genre: D/s undertones, Dissociation, Gen, Identity Issues, M/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-19
Updated: 2017-01-19
Packaged: 2018-09-18 14:15:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 884
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9388823
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yuusaku/pseuds/yuusaku
Summary: It's hard to make something coherent out of the pieces of who he's been.(so instead; something new)





	

He is—

Shark, Ryoga, Nasch, all of those things and none of them, king and corpse and barian and human and—

He ends up at the tower; somehow, somewhen. Doesn't remember how he got there, doesn't remember how long it's been (since fighting or falling or fighting or falling), what day or month or year or century it is. Doesn't remember who or what he is, who or what he's supposed to be, doesn't remember whether he's getting things right or wrong or—

There are hands pulling him up, a voice that tries different names in turn (Ryoga, Shark, and then, more hesitantly, Nasch?) and when he turns his head away from all of them, when he whines and cringes like a wounded animal because words are beyond him right now when he can't even remember what the right language would be, the voice's owner just sighs and brings him out of the cold. Offers him food, offers him drinks, asks what he needs, and they're simple questions but he ends up curling in on himself with his hands over his ears and his eyes pressed tight shut because he doesn't— he doesn't know, don't they understand that he doesn't know what he wants, what he needs?

"Who are you, right now?" the voice asks, and he sobs and curls tighter into himself and only hears the soft curse in response like a sound underwater.

He doesn't know how much time has passed when the voice's owner is back, pale hands tugging him away from himself gently but firmly and a black sash held out questioningly in front of his face. No words, but that's for the best (or not, not 'for the best', those words sink into his chest like poison) right now, and it takes long, stumbling moments before he understands the question but he does, eventually, understands it and nods frantically until his head is steadied and the sash is pressed over his eyes and tied at the back of his head.

"Do you know who I am?" the voice asks, and this time he knows the answer, this time he can manage a name; Kaito, quiet and rasping in the back of his throat.

He's not sure he would have managed before the blindfold, not sure he would have managed with too much, too much outside and inside and nothing to dull any of it down. But the blindfold is there, now, drowning out outside and somehow quieting inside too so that he can focus on the hands - Kaito's hands, he knows that now - carding through his hair.

(there's something almost automatic about the gesture, it feels like, calming a frightened animal rather than interacting with someone human or even someone barian, someone close-but-not-quite to humanity)

Kaito urges him onto his feet after a time, though he doesn't remember sitting down. Leads him along until— he's not sure, but a door shuts behind them and maybe that's important.

"There's a chair, a bed, or the floor," comes Kaito's voice, calm and level as though this is the kind of thing he deals with every day. "Which do you need?"

He thinks about it, and then he doesn't remember answering but he must have - must have answered unless he just took so long in silence that Kaito made the choice for him - because he's being led over to what he thinks is a chair, he's led over there and thinks he's about to be sat down on it until Kaito takes it himself and urges him down until he finds himself sat at Kaito's feet. And… maybe he didn't answer, maybe Kaito did choose, but he thinks this is right, thinks it's—

(it's not the place for a king or a lord or even a particularly proud human, not a place for any of the pieces of himself that jar and scrape and won't fit together)

He was losing time as it is and the blindfold makes it easier, makes things blur and blend together even more than the fractured edges of his mind had been letting time slip away on their own. Time slips and blends and blurs and he doesn't know how long it's been, how long he's been sat at Kaito's feet when he becomes aware again - wakes up, maybe? - and realizes that his head is leaning against Kaito's thigh, that there are slim fingers running through his hair slowly and steadily so that he almost loses more time to the motion before he manages to lift his head a little and angle it toward where he thinks Kaito's face is.

"Do you know who you are, right now?" Kaito asks, maybe immediately or maybe seconds or minutes or hours after his head lifted.

He has to think about it, but at least the thinking doesn't hurt this time. It's blurred and muddled but not sharp, this time, and it takes him a while but eventually he rasps out, "Yours. Right now, just… yours."

There's a pause, one where he can imagine Kaito's brows knitting into a frown, imagine Kaito watching his face, and then Kaito lets out a gusty sigh and starts up the motion of his fingers in Shark's hair again.

"Okay," he says after a few moments of that. "Mine, then, at least for now."


End file.
